


summer of 2014

by ryukyubat (edbloom)



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Gen, M/M, Yearning, philippines - setting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:27:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26817346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edbloom/pseuds/ryukyubat
Summary: There's just something about summer that pulled Minghao.
Relationships: Jeon Wonwoo/Xu Ming Hao | The8
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	summer of 2014

**Author's Note:**

> yo yall wanna see how crazy i can get on the night before my first day of class?

summer of ‘12

minghao thinks nothing of summer. you chase it and chase it-- until you don’t. until you spend it doing nothing and everything; going from town to town, and staying in one place for too long. summer meant driving on the road for hours on end, watching cities turn into fields, the city lights into bright blue skies. expansive until it isn’t.

summer for minghao meant waiting--you can say school, but that isn’t exactly what he means. he means this feeling that wafts through his chest as he lays on his bed, staring at the ceiling fan and the bright orange light that shines from his open windows. 

waiting. wanting. yearning. 

minghao isn’t exactly sure what to call it. but it was there; something in his chest that burns as hot as the afternoon sun--tugging, pulling.his head lulls to the side, watching the vermillion dusk drip into a cobalt blue through the window. he doesn’t know exactly where the feeling is tugging him to, or why exactly it was there but minghao has never been one to deny an adventure.

so he lets it fester. between drinking popcolas with mingyu on the pavement by the skate park as they watch hansol do an ollie, watching centuries old movies with seokmin at the rundown theatre near the mall and riding the back of jun’s old red toyota to the peak of sierra madre to stargaze, he lets it happen.

minghao yearns for something and nothing at the same time.

  
  
  
  


summer of ‘14

  
  


if you asked minghao what he knows about soulmates, he’ll tell you that he knows absolutely nothing about them. 

but then he’d be lying, and minghao was trying to be as honest as possible. 

so he’ll take it back, say it was a slip of a tongue. he’ll say he read articles on it online, passing glances--nothing more, nothing less.

it isn’t the full truth but it’s enough to not make minghao feel guilty.

soulmates, minghao thinks, are a complicated thing. he always thought as a kid that he’d never be a slave to it--he’ll make his own decisions. fate or not, minghao would make his own path.

and to be fair, he still stands by it.

the only difference is now, he knows a lot more about it. curiosity is one hell of a motivator and soulmates are interesting enough to keep minghao hooked during one of his 2:16 AM deep dives. one vox video led to another, and before he knows it, he’s giving the whole thing a chance. 

67% of soulmates find each other, the voice over lady had said. the rest live their lives normally, mundanely, except they wake up with an echo of emptiness sometimes. it’s a hollow feeling, one of the unpaired said. not jarring, or sudden, just--hollow, like you have a feeling something was there and then it wasn’t. you learn to live with it after some time, they laughed.  _ i’m happy now and i hope wherever my soulmate may be, they are too _ .

minghao thought that was a nice attitude to have--if it happens, it happens. if it doesn’t, then there’s no use crying about it.

_ maybe i could give it a chance _ was his last thought before he fell asleep that night.

so now he does. he isn’t like eight year old minghao anymore, refusing to meet new people except for his first grade classmates--and that was only because he had to. minghao meets people proudly now, talks to the barista from the hole-in-the-wall cafe near his school with a tone of familiarity, asks pens from people in his seminars with a friendly smile.

mingyu calls it an improvement, minghao decides not to argue with him when he says it with a bright smile.

  
  
  


junhui comes home from university a couple of weeks after minghao’s summer starts. 

jun coming home wouldn’t really mean much in any other circumstance, seeing as he came home every weekend, laundry bag in hand and stories at the tip of his tongue. but this time, he brought someone with him--a guy named wonwoo, whose parents were back in south korea while he studied here in the philippines.

minghao has never seen him, even when he visited jun during one of his free days. mingyu said he did though, met him once, when jun took him to an organization meeting. jun says it’s because wonwoo had class the day minghao visited. mingyu tells him later on that wonwoo never had class that day, he was just out. 

maybe it was fate, mingyu snickers. minghao only glares at him in retaliation.

minghao finally meets him though, 

at the parking lot of a mcdonald’s, clad in gingham pajamas and a coffee-stained hoodie.

wonwoo, messy black hair and fox-like eyes, wears joggers and thread-bare shirts to sleep, dons thin silver rimmed glasses. he isn’t looking at minghao, preoccupied with talking to junhui.

minghao gets off the tricycle, and he finally looks at him.

  
  
  


it isn’t an ideal situation to meet your soulmate, but minghao thinks wonwoo’s confused but intrigued smile makes up for it.

(and minghao doesn’t notice it at first, too enamored by the way wonwoo looks at him, nose scrunched and eyes never straying. only realizes it when he slips off his slippers at home, after wonwoo gives him his number and leaves him a promise of seeing again tomorrow, that the yearning feeling lingering in his chest has finally disappeared.)

**Author's Note:**

> [twitter](www.twitter.com/fIowerpecker) | [cc](www.curiouscat.me/junle)


End file.
